What Holds, What Reaches

I come from a yard where the oak

outlived three houses and one marriage,

its roots threading the dark like a rumor

no storm could quite uproot.

My mother’s voice is in that soil—

soft orders, grocery lists, the scrape

of her laughter against a hard day.

My father’s silence is there too,

heavy as wet clay,

teaching me how not to speak

and why I should.

These are the roots:

hands that worked past aching,

names spoken over kitchen sinks,

photos in shoeboxes that smell

of dust and lemon oil,

the stubborn, ordinary faith

that tomorrow means “try again.”

But I have always watched the branches.

How they spend themselves on sky,

how they risk the fall for one more inch of light.

Every book I’ve dog-eared,

every ticket stub in my drawer,

each late-night sentence I almost deleted—

they are twigs, thin but insistent,

leaning toward a world that has not yet

learned my name.

Some days the roots grip my ankles,

whisper stay, be grateful, be small.

Some days the branches tug my shoulders,

saying go, be loud, be more.

I have learned to stand where they meet:

feet deep in the old stories,

crown full of new leaves,

not choosing between past and possible

but letting one feed the other—

So that what holds me

is also what lifts me,

and what I reach for

keeps teaching me how to remain.